The Dark Inside (15 page)

James heard the rear lights shatter. The bending of metal.

The shunt of it was like being hit in a dodgem, the force of it centred in his chest and his neck, knocking out his breath and forcing his eyes shut.

He felt the steering wheel shudder, the tyres skidding as the vehicle spun.

And then the rear of the car hit the central crash barrier and everything stopped.

The breathing in James’s chest was electric. And he tried not to remember when he’d last felt like this, in that moment when his life had changed forever.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring across three lanes of motorway at the hard shoulder on the other side.

He looked right and saw that another car had stopped in the middle of the motorway, facing the wrong way, nose crumpled, its front bumper lying on the road. Plastic orange pieces glowed like
embers, scattered over the tarmac.

When he panicked and looked to his left in the direction of the oncoming traffic, James saw cars stopped in their lanes, their headlights glaring at him.

He peeled his hands off the steering wheel. Took off his seat belt. And popped the lock on the driver’s door and opened it. But, before stepping out, he checked back, and picked up the
small leather pouch in the tray beside him and gripped it hard, wishing himself and Webster somewhere safe. But all he heard was the idling engines from the waiting cars. And James shuddered. For
it seemed there was nothing for him to trust or believe in as he staggered out of the car into the road, the pouch gripped hard in his fist, as he kept trying to wish himself and Webster away.

Nobody else in the other cars seemed to know what to do. Or maybe time had somehow stopped for everyone but him. He was shaking, but he managed to come around the car and open Webster’s
door.

The man half stepped, half fell on to the road.

James noticed the newspaper lying in the front passenger footwell of the car beside the old woman’s red leather bag. There he was in his school uniform, staring back, and a photograph of
Timpston too. The picture of the village was so small, yet so powerful. And James knew immediately what he had to do. He stopped wishing for anything magical to happen, and hooked his hands into
Webster’s armpits and dragged him up on to his feet.

He helped Webster over the crash barrier in the centre of the motorway.

They walked across the lanes.

Stumbled down the embankment on the far side.

And disappeared into the night.

The two of them found a barn after it seemed they had walked forever under the stars, Webster stumbling and holding on to James. They stripped apart a bale of hay, covering
themselves over with golden threads.

Webster slept fitfully, lashing out with his arms. Crying out for people that James did not know. The boy stared silently up at the rafters, trying not to worry about what was going to happen
next. Eventually, his hand crept into the pocket of his jeans and curled around the leather pouch, despite not knowing what to say or do.

It was still before sunrise when Webster awoke, and sat up and rubbed the blood back into his face. It was cold and he pulled the straw up around him like a blanket.

‘How are you feeling?’ asked James.

‘Too much champagne,’ joked Webster weakly and the boy grinned. Looking out from the barn, all Webster could see was a landscape of moor lit by the moon and it looked like the bare
bones of the world. ‘Where are we?’

‘Somewhere.’

‘Do you know where we’re going?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t worry,’ smiled Webster. ‘That’s how it is for almost everyone, I reckon.’ But his grin faded as he stared at the moon because he could see
it was almost full.

James took out the pages from his back pocket. Unfolded them. And set about scanning the handwritten notes in the margins.

‘That old woman’s wrong,’ he said. ‘It says here there are other cures we can try. Wolfsbane, which is a plant. Exorcism. Maybe even—’

Webster held up his hand.

‘I’m not sure we’ll find any of them before tonight, do you? Not out here. This is a place to get lost in, nothing more. It’s probably the best place for me.’

‘But wha—’

Webster held up his hand again and closed his eyes.

James folded up his pages and balanced them next to him on the hay. He took a deep breath, thinking very carefully about what he had discussed with Cook, before Billy had put them both in the
cellar.

‘Most people don’t believe what Billy and his ma do.’

‘I wish they were right.’

‘In those pages it says anyone thinking they’ll transform into something else on a full moon is just plain . . .’ James weighed different words in his mouth until he found the
right one. ‘Wrong.’

Webster opened his eyes. ‘Do you think I’m cuckoo?’ he asked. ‘Mad?’

‘No.’

‘Billy and his ma don’t either.’

‘No, they don’t.’

‘And what about Cook? You said he was the one who attacked me, so it must be all true.’

‘That’s what he told me,’ said James, nodding, because he did not want to fight.

‘So why bring up what it says in those pages then?’ asked Webster in an angry voice.

‘I don’t know. I was just thinking out loud. Wondering about it all. About everything,’ shouted James and he thumped the straw. ‘Why couldn’t you have forgiven
Cook?’

Webster hung his head.

‘It’s a difficult thing to do,’ he said. ‘That vicar was right. Forgiving’s not easy at all. You have to be brave.’

Neither of them said anything for a while. The moonlight seemed to freeze everything. Even their breath.

‘I’m sorry I raised my voice,’ said Webster.

‘I’m sorry too,’ James said, reaching across and lifting the pieces of paper off the hay and putting them back in the pocket of his jeans. ‘We should start over. Work out
what to do next.’

Webster nodded. He got up and walked round the barn and the boy watched him, waiting to hear what he had to say. But Webster did not say anything and eventually he sat back down beside the
boy.

‘Any ideas?’ asked James.

‘I thought I might sit here and see what happens next.’

‘Isn’t that the same as giving up?’

‘I don’t think so. Not if there’s someone else in control of things.’ Webster pressed his hands to the earth and motioned to James to do the same. ‘Can you feel
it?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘The world turning. Doing what someone must have wanted it to do.’

‘Yes,’ said James, even though he couldn’t, because he knew it was what Webster wanted to hear.

When the man smiled, James smiled back.

Gradually, the moon set and disappeared, and the light began to change and harden into a dark blue. When Webster asked him if he was hungry, James nodded, and Webster told him
he would try to find something in the copse they had passed on their way to the barn. Before he left, he told the boy to keep out of sight and watch for anyone coming.

James sat quietly in the twilight, listening to the dawn as it broke. He heard the occasional high-pitched shriek of a fox echoing across the moor, a thin breeze wasting through the gorse. He
pressed his hands flat on to the ground either side of him for a second time, and tried to feel the world turning like Webster had done, but again he felt nothing. Even when he held his breath.

He took out the notes, sifting through them until he found the newspaper cutting of himself. And he laid the picture on his lap and stared at it in the briny, early morning light with the
moorland panning out in front of the barn, studded with boulders that reared up in the sunrise as the ground caught fire in patches of purple and green and yellow.

When Webster returned with his hands cupped full of berries, he saw that the boy was asleep, the newspaper cutting soft across his knees. He was careful not to wake him as he
sat and ate his share, watching the sun rising steadily and warming the land.

When he heard a noise in the distance, he looked up and saw a Land Rover, a long way off, rocking over the mud track that led up to the barn. Webster watched it until he could see who was
driving and then stood up.

He looked down at James.

Then back to the Land Rover.

And then back down at the boy.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered. And then he left quietly, walking on to the moor, and soon he was lost from sight.

James heard a man’s voice shouting at him to wake up. It was his stepfather, the man’s face looming and distorting like the reflection in a fairground mirror.

He woke with a start and found himself staring into the soft brown eyes of a man with a weathered face and grey hair who was holding the newspaper cutting between a rough-hewn finger and
thumb.

James panicked.

Stood up.

Looked around.

But there was no sign of Webster.

And then he noticed a small portion of tiny wild strawberries and raspberries heaped in the straw near his foot.

The man, who was watching him, held up his hands, and shuffled a few steps back and crouched down again.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said gently. ‘I’m a farmer. This is my barn. I came here to fetch that trailer.’ And he pointed to a small metal trailer
standing in the far corner.

James kept looking around, trying to work out where Webster might be. But he already knew, in his heart, what had probably happened as he found himself staring out across the moor.

He bent down and picked up a raspberry, and turned it slowly through his fingers, thinking hard about what he was going to do now.

‘You’re that missing boy, aren’t you?’ said the farmer. ‘The one in the newspaper.’ He held up the cutting.

‘Maybe,’ said James, staring at the picture of himself in his blazer.

The farmer thought about that as the boy stood before him in his dirty sweater and jeans. And then he folded up the cutting and offered it back.

‘It’s James though? Isn’t it?’

The boy put the cutting in his pocket and nodded.

The farmer sank back on his haunches and rubbed his chin. ‘So what am I supposed to do now?’ he asked.

James shrugged.

‘There’s people worried about you. Your stepfather for one. The police. But it seems to me like you might not want to be found.’ He pointed out through the doorway at the moor.
‘That’s as good a place as any to hide yourself in.’

James nodded as he rolled the raspberry back and forth between his fingers, still unsure about what to do next.

‘Even so, you won’t find what you’re looking for out there,’ continued the farmer.

‘How do you know what I’m looking for?’

But the farmer did not seem to hear. He shifted his feet, and sat down with his legs straight out in front of him and leant back on his arms. The soles of his black wellington boots were worn
and scraped and caked with mud.

‘When I was about your age, I lost my dear old mum. Cancer. Got a taste for her guts then her bones. And there was no stopping it after that. I said goodbye to her when I was ten.
I’m not sure she knew much about it towards the end, but we’d spent a lot of time not saying goodbye when she was still well enough and that probably counted for a lot more. At least
that’s what I like to think.’

‘What happened to you, after she died?’ asked James.

‘Life went on. And here I am to prove it.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘I reckon my old mum’d be pretty proud of that.’

James looked down at his hand when he felt something sticky and wet. The raspberry between his fingers had burst, turning their ends red. He crouched down and started rubbing them clean in the
straw. And then he stopped suddenly.

‘You read about my mum in the paper,’ he said.

‘Yes, I did. And?’

‘Nothing,’ said James when his fingers were clean again.

‘Well then.’ The farmer studied the boy crouched in front of him. And then he looked away. ‘I was unhappy for a very long time after she died. The thing was, I couldn’t
understand who’d flicked the switch inside me.’

‘Flicked the switch?’

‘Yes. From on to off.’

‘You think there’s a switch for people?’

The farmer nodded.

‘For their happiness. I couldn’t think of any better way to explain it back then. Still can’t. And now, years later, I know it’s true.’

‘How?’

‘Because all the way through it’s been on and then off. On. Off. And the good bits have been things like meeting my wife, having my own children, working my farm and making
friends.’

‘What about when the switch was off?’

‘Well, certain things are my business and not yours. But I can tell you it’s a hard life being a farmer and having children, and watching them growing up and being responsible for
them.’ He looked out across the moor and stared at something James couldn’t see. ‘I had a grandson once. He almost grew up to be as old as you.’ And then he looked at James
and smiled. And the boy smiled and nodded back because speaking didn’t seem the right thing to do.

‘Who is it that flicks the switch?’ asked James eventually.

‘Who indeed? I’ll leave that up to others to work out. People better qualified than me. But I’ll tell you this. It tells me how to live. Because when that switch is off I know
it’ll come on again eventually. And, when it’s on, I know to enjoy the moment because it’ll be going off again sometime in the future.’